1. Technical Field
Aspects of this document relate to systems and methods for driver performance assessment and improvement. An alert may be provided based on road location and/or other data. The alert may include information indicating the reason for the alert provided. As a result of receiving the alert, the driver may adjust their route or driving behavior.
2. Background Art
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data for 2009 showed that 32.7% of large truck accidents were the result of failure to stay in the lane of travel (e.g., truck crossing median, rollover, and collisions with fixed objects). These types of accidents resulted in 826 deaths and 15,000 injuries in 2009 according to NHSTA statistics. However, these numbers just reflect accidents that resulted from loss of control by the truck driver. Safety in the trucking industry continues to be a significant concern as fatal accidents rose 8.7% from 2009 to 2010. On a typical day in the US large trucks have 8 fatal crashes causing 10 deaths, 140 injury crashes and 636 property damage only crashes costing the industry in total over $100 million per day.
Many large trucks are now equipped with GPS tracking systems that record and report the location, the speed of the truck, and brake and throttle behavior of the driver. Recent experience with monitoring truck speed and braking behavior by drivers has been used by fleet managers to offer remedial training to drivers that resulted in up to 45% reduction of certain types of accidents related to driving behavior which was discovered through the driver's use of the brakes.